


Arrivals and Departures

by astraplain



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4181940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraplain/pseuds/astraplain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel’s timing is as good as usual. Based on the prompt: Kurt and Adam have a fight so bad that the end of their relationship seems inevitable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arrivals and Departures

Like so many disasters in Kurt’s life, it all started with Rachel Berry. This time, Kurt might not be able to repair the damage.

The shirt Adam was wearing was one of Kurt’s favorites, the well-cut fabric accenting his broad, muscular back while the thin vertical stripes made him look taller. One late night they’d let a movie play in the background while Kurt traced every one of those stripes. Today the stripes made Adam seem far out of reach.

Kurt wondered why he wasn’t screaming. There were only the usual sounds: the faucet was dripping again; the old-fashioned clock was ticking steadily; on the street below someone was leaning on their car horn; Adam’s retreating footsteps were muffled by the carpet.

There was supposed to be one perfect moment of redemption. A hesitation as Adam’s hand reached for the door. Kurt taking a step forward, hand outstretched. Some distraction that made Adam look back one last time before he walked out of Kurt’s life forever.

Why did movies always lie?

Three weeks before his senior project was due, the project that would make or break his career at NYADA, Rachel showed up at the loft, unannounced, with a suitcase. Sadly, this was not an unusual experience in the loft so Kurt just pushed the door open wider and stepped aside. Rachel breezed in leaving the suitcase for Kurt to carry.

“Did you bring bricks?” He huffed as he dragged the suitcase as far as the sofa and left it beside the coffee table.

“Just the necessities,” Rachel chirped. She gave Kurt a hug before marching off to the kitchen and raiding the fridge. 

“That’s Adam’s.” Kurt snatched the leftover container away and replaced it with a vegetable plate that Kurt kept for snacking. 

Rachel set the plate it on the table and raided the cupboards. Over the last of Adam’s oatmeal raisin cookies she finally admitted why she’d returned to New York unannounced.

“You have to help me,” Rachel insisted, clinging to Kurt’s hand. “I haven’t had an audition in weeks! No one on Broadway will even talk to me. I need to refresh my image but the dog people won’t return my calls and the rude man at the senior center hung up on me. Do you know how hard it is to find a charitable cause that hasn’t already been on the cover of ‘People’?”

“I’m booked solid for the next three weeks,” Kurt said, knowing that Rachel wasn’t hearing a word he said. She went on about Steven and Luc coming to the city and that she had to have at least one cover photo or they’d miss out on their opportunity to offer her the lead in their next film. Kurt tuned most of of what she was saying and mentally reviewed the timeline for his NYADA project.

In the end, Kurt had caved. Kurt hated that about himself but Rachel Berry was relentless and between classes, working at Vogue.com and rehearsing the cast for the one-act play Kurt had written for his senior project, he didn’t have the energy to resist.

Because of that Adam was walking away and there was nothing Kurt could say to stop him. 

There had been too many words already: gentle requests giving way to clipped sentences, angry exclamations and, finally, bitter resignation. Rachel had arrived with a suitcase, Adam was leaving with one.

Adam had tried to help. Despite working two jobs and rehearsing for a small part in an off-off-Broadway play, he’d done everything he could to help. For Rachel, it hadn’t been enough. She’d left the way she’d arrived, giving no warning, leaving only ashes in her wake. 

There had been a few, fragile days when they might have saved themselves but leaving the loft didn’t mean Rachel stopped making demands. 

Adam broke first, his patience drained like the rest of his reserves. He’d been taking extra shifts to cover bills while Kurt cut back at Vogue.com to work on his project. When the offer had come in for Adam’s play, Adam had almost turned it down. Kurt convinced him to accept, but it became one more demand on the exhausted man. Then Rachel arrived. 

Kurt trudged into the loft at nine that evening with dark circles under his eyes and a bag full of work to be completed by morning. He found Adam standing at the kitchen table holding the poster Kurt had worked on until three that morning.

“Rachel’s Rabbit Rehabilitation?” Adam’s usually expressive voice was toneless. “She’s cribbing from Wallace and Gromit?” He turned the poster toward Kurt. “I thought we agreed that Rachel would find someone else to help plan her latest image makeover.”

“We did. I just thought…” Kurt had to avert his eyes from Adam's wounded expression. “I just wanted to help.” His frustration made him sound defensive even to his own ears. 

“You always want to help, Kurt. It’s an endless parade of needy high school chums traipsing through here and you just want to help. When is one of them going to help you?”

“I don’t know!” Kurt threw his bag down. It was the very question he’d been asking himself for years. His New Directions friends didn’t hesitate to ask - sometimes demand - his help but whenever he needed it - like with his upcoming senior project - they offered nothing but excuses. He’d been promising Adam, and himself, that he’d learn to say no but he never did.

“Well I do.” With deliberate movements and not a trace of his usual gentleness, Adam tore the poster in half, then in quarters.

Kurt lunged forward with a wordless cry, clutching Adam’s forearms. They struggled for a moment before Kurt gave Adam a shove, sending the man backwards against a chair. It scraped loudly across the floor sending them both to stillness.

“I won’t have this,” Adam said, cutting Kurt off before he could speak. Adam threw the crumpled poster fragments onto the table and marched off to their bedroom, resolute. Kurt collapsed into a chair, moving only to silence Rachel’s phone call.

They’d talked about this long before Adam moved in, how he’d spent his early teens being bullied by an older step-brother and the boy’s friends. Once he’d gotten strong enough to defend himself, Adam had vowed that he would never tolerate violence in his home.

There was nothing Kurt could say that would undo the damage he’d done. It was the one line Adam had drawn and Kurt had crossed it. It didn’t matter that Kurt was exhausted and stressed and overworked. Adam was working just as hard, he was just as tired and equally stressed, but Kurt was the one who had lashed out.

Weak and unsteady, Kurt stood as Adam emerged from the bedroom carrying his suitcase. They looked at each other for a moment, silent. Adam turned away first. 

Adam’s hand was on the door when Kurt spoke. They weren’t words, just a desperate sound. He stumbled forward, vision blurred with tears.

“I can’t,” Adam insisted, backing away from Kurt. Kurt reached out anyway. His fingers tangled in the fabric of Adam’s shirt and he held on like he was drowning.

It was an eternity before Adam’s rigid posture relaxed and even longer before his arms wound around Kurt’s back. They clung to each other like they’d just reached the eye of a storm.

When they heard Rachel pounding on the door they moved to the sofa, silent, and waited for her to leave. It took a long time, but when she was finally gone, Adam brushed a fingertip down Kurt’s cheek and nodded when Kurt leaned over for a kiss.

Later there would be apologies and serious conversations. They would order take-out and discuss the tasks necessary to get them through the next week and the presentation of Kurt’s senior project. Then, for the first time in too long, they would go to bed together. In the morning Kurt would make a phone call. It started with Rachel Berry. This time it would end without her.

::end::


End file.
